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by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, archive warning: a knight who is aware of literary criticism don't @ me, archive warning: castiel is absolutely a knight, archive warning: dean is a damsel, archive warning: established olds, archive warning: it is stupid cold outside, archive warning: literary criticism, archive warning: love affair with the met cloisters, archive warning: self-indulgent garbage, archive warning: sickening couple shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: Bits of writing less than 3k in length, almost entirely Destiel-adjacent and almost always posted on Tumblr.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. 01.02.21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TFW takes a trip to the Met Cloisters for some magical herbs and a jousting rod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first Destiel fic I've ever written (after yrs of being inactive in the fandom) and it's almost entirely for me and me alone. I don't necessarily expect people to like this, because it's (1) extremely niche, and (2) they don't even get to kiss, which is a travesty. I promise that the next one I post will be less *waves hands* and more kiss-laden.
> 
> (1) [The Met Cloisters](https://www.metmuseum.org/primer/met-cloisters#journey-begins); (2) [Courtly Love](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_love); (3) [La Belle Dame sans Merci](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/John_William_Waterhouse_-_La_Belle_Dame_sans_Merci_%281893%29.jpg); (4) ["Come Again," Sting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8HTYK66WAo) (Highly recommended listening for this!)

_“In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment, ‘a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent.’”_

* * *

**PART the ONE**

There’s a fucking manticore in Memphis. _Seriously._ Human face, body of a lion, the whole _freakin’_ nine.

“Certainly one of the more… _imaginative_ of God’s creatures,” Castiel muses, “albeit, unsustainable.” 

**PART the TWO**

Manticores can only be killed using a jousting rod dipped in some ground herb or another that likely no longer exists. In the same way that _jousting rods_ no longer really exist. Well, except at—

“Like the ones at Medieval Times?”

“Uh, no,” Sam corrects with a smirk, “has to be a real one.” He glances back down at his laptop and continues, “...dipped in something called, um, ‘Humulus Lupulus.’”

“Come again?”

“Oh,” he starts pleasantly, “it’s hops.”

“Beer.”

“Yes, well,” he’s quick to correct, “an extinct variety.”

“Of course.”

**PART the THREE**

Not _quite_ as extinct as they’d been led to believe, the variety in question can in fact be found (in extremely limited quantities) as part of a Medieval herb library at a museum in New York.

“Probably have the jousting rods there too,” Sam happily remarks.

“Dude, you are _way_ too excited about this.”

“What? I’ve heard it’s nice.”

**PART the FOUR**

The Winchesters descend upon Manhattan in early December with an angel in the backseat.

* * *

**_DEAN_ **

The mountain peaks of eastern Pennsylvania give way to skyscrapers that fade into a hazy sky. They follow a long, winding river and cross a number of different bridges—leaving the windows open a crack because the heater in the Impala has two settings: sub-zero and sub-saharan. Jethro Tull rumbles softly through the speaker, and at least once every hour Dean glances in his rearview to watch Cas’ eyes follow the bare trees as they zip past. When they’re about an hour outside the city he can start to smell the snowstorm that follows in their wake.

 _Samuel_ is ecstatic about the Cloisters and Castiel is “admittedly curious.” Dean has never felt entirely comfortable in museums (and his relationship with this city is tepid at best). It’s not even necessarily because he doesn’t enjoy or appreciate them, only it usually feels as if some haughty tour guide or front desk clerk is constantly on the verge of asking him to leave.

The museum itself sits atop a hill overlooking the river. They park on the street below and walk a curving pathway towards the entrance. Most of the leaves that adorned the trees are now gone, and as they ascend it’s easy to look out over the river and see for miles; where the clouds have now overtaken the view of the mountains. The structure towers over them as they reach the top, and he can hear Sam chattering away about how it was built in 1933—how it was designed as an immersive, Medieval experience.

“It does bear a startling resemblance,” Castiel observes, his eyes following the curving archways and pointed rooftops.

Dean tries to imagine Castiel (as he is now; it’s difficult to imagine him any other way) wandering the quiet halls of some ancient monastery—the hushed whispers of devout monks following his hallowed steps through their blessed halls.

“You ever spend any time in the Middle Ages?” he asks as Sam purchases their tickets.

“Not often,” he answers distractedly, his eyes drawn to the colorful tapestries and stained glass. “It _was_ a more… pious era.”

Before Dean can make heads or tails of _that_ comment, Sam is shoving tickets into their hands and herding them towards the center gallery, the absolute _nerdiness_ coming off him in waves. He bounds ahead without a second thought, leaving Dean to follow in Castiel’s far more tempered footsteps. It can be a relief sometimes, being swept up in the wake of his calm. Like he has an excuse to leisurely wander; to take note of the smell of beeswax and incense. The way the early afternoon sunlight yawns across the chapel floor in shades of red, gold, and blue.

The place is almost eerily silent as they walk past two older women in slouchy felt hats, but otherwise the museum is blessedly devoid of people. He pulls ahead shortly after the first gallery; his anxiety about leaving his baby parked on a busy city street too long making him impatient. He notices an outdoor space that he’s _hoping_ leads to the herb library when he notices Castiel’s absence, and spins around looking for _beige_ and bedhead. Through the limestone archway at his back he finds him standing in profile; so still he could easily be mistaken for a statue himself (although he has to concede, while _angels_ were a Middle Age staple, trenchcoats probably weren’t). 

He sighs and retreats, this time taking note of a sign that reads, “Courtly Love: From the Middle Ages to Now.” The walls in this gallery are hung with large tapestries and paintings, while the floor is strategically mapped with glass cases full of open manuscripts, jewelry, and comically large goblets.

“What’s up man, we gotta hustle,” he whispers, giving Cas’ bicep a gentle pinch.

The angel’s head rests at what has become a very familiar angle—his gaze preternaturally intense and not necessarily unusual given how taken he is to gazing. The painting to which he seems to have found himself inexplicably drawn depicts a man and a woman in what Dean might call a somewhat _steamy_ predicament. A woman in bare feet with an eye-catching set of _red_ (red, red, red) lips. The man hovering over her—and _he_ could only be called a knight, seems to be entirely at her mercy; what with the way she pulls his lips down to her own using a slip of golden fabric wrapped around the back of his neck.

* * *

**_CASTIEL_ **

Despite the mild air of falsity, Castiel encounters comfort in this place. A spiritual haven out of time, and in disparate pieces. He can relate in certain ways—and he’s spent enough time on earth to understand the value of indulging illusion. He makes a small vow to himself that while he’s here he may as well accept the comfort and make peace with any further inconsistencies with reality.

Dean is uncharacteristically silent as they search for the library and/or weapon they need to defeat the manticore, but it doesn’t appear to be out of any kind of anger or displeasure. If anything he seems to be similarly appreciative at first. He _does_ become impatient after a time, and Castiel watches as he surges forward, his shoulders lined with a hint of tension.

Across from an enclosed garden, full of thin, empty branches and wilted flowers, he spots it. “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” by John William Waterhouse circa 1893. Taken as he is by the painting, he pauses to observe the rest of the gallery, seemingly devoted to a singular concept. Knights and Ladies—heroism and virtue, passion and holiness. He can’t deny his familiarity. He stares again at the painting—at Her brazenness and His hesitancy. 

And oh, what a _thing_ it is—what a thing it _must_ be. To stare at someone else’s lips and _imagine_ an exquisitely painful scenario in which they are permitted to touch. To shirk one’s duty and succumb to a holiness of a different kind. In his near infinite catalog of human history he considers the Lady and her Knight in all their maddening complexity.

When _love_ and _God_ played themselves out in a strange performance of characteristically human hypocrisy. To proclaim love for another and for _God_ only to pointedly _deny_ God in the name of that _same_ love. As if they weren’t only ever one in the same.

He senses him before he feels the pinch—smells the Impala and the coffee he’d drank; the incense mixed with ancient paint, and his thoughts become _untethered_. By the headiness of the room’s warmth; the familiarity he can’t seem to shake; the Knight and his bowed head. They all swirl and rise like smoke from a thurible, and he is helpless against the realization that he has perhaps performed these same rituals more than he had ever realized.

Castiel had always thought of himself as little more than a warrior, even when he had rescued Dean from Hell. But now, in the presence of this maddening bit of human ingenuity; with years of even _more_ rescuing (of the same man, in fact), he has to wonder. Less of a warrior or a soldier and more so a Knight? Difference being the reasoning for his violence—for war or for love? _Whom_ does his violence serve now?

The man in this painting, he must choose. God or love? Despite the woman’s obvious aggression, it can’t be argued that the man is without his own _desire_. No, not desire. Yearning. Castiel has had little frame of reference for the entire concept. For there would seem to be desire and then there is _yearning_. An entirely different animal (which is what it _is_ , he has come to realize). There is an unexamined, instinctual painfulness to yearning that desire has yet to learn.

“Human beings,” Castiel reflects, “have an entire history predicated upon chivalric tradition—albeit, antiquated within your current zeitgeist—”

“Cas, what the _fu_ —”

“You are a subversion of this,” he interrupts in a near-fury, “as always.” An almost grin, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Dean still has that _look_ that he gives with this entire _body_. A now-instinctive reaction to the things that Castiel can’t help but say; that he fully _hears_ in the moment but won’t really _understand_ for another few hours (or days).

“In this way I’m left to conclude that I would be the Knight in this particular circumstance.”

It feels like an embarrassing thing to say, but he’s not really sure why. He wouldn’t have been embarrassed to say so a few years earlier; he would’ve just said it and been done with it. However, several years and occasional bouts of mortality post that _first_ rescue have imbued him with the uniquely human power of _embarrassment_. An emotion he’s found to be linked with fear, shame, and vulnerability. When Dean becomes embarrassed his face flushes.

Dean sputters and a reddish color erupts across his cheeks and nose, and his hands do that thing where they move and rotate in search of an appropriate response to whatever Castiel’s just said. “So, what, you’re a _knight_ and I’m a...”

“Damsel,” Castiel finishes decidedly, “although, as I’ve come to learn the connotations surrounding the concept have certainly evolved.”

Question being, is Dean the Damsel that’s pulled the Knight from his noble quest, or does he (the Knight, Castiel, Angel of the Lord) attain spiritual enlightenment by submitting to the love the Damsel provides? The human kind—red lips and bare feet. Scholarly interpretations would seem to vary. And then there’s the more _modern_ way of thinking—that the entire convention transforms the Lady (typically female) into nothing more than a vessel for the _Knight’s_ worth.

And _maybe_ there’s an element of self-recrimination; of punishing himself as he had been _taught_ to do. What if the Knight and the Lady have punished themselves _both_? How much has he gotten in his own way, and for _what_? What further _illusory_ notions—of a type less valuable?

“I’ve saved a damsel or two, ok?” Dean croaks, breaking into his thoughts.

“And who have you believed them to be?”

“It’s not about _belief_ ,” he explains, “they’re… _people_ , they are who they say they are.”

“Yes, but they are frequently impermanent, are they not? You rarely see them again.”

Dean appears frustrated. Huffs and rolls his eyes. “Cas, we _really_ should—”

“I wouldn’t want you to think that you don’t have value, Dean.”

“Dude, I _don’t_ think—”

“You do,” Castiel insists, “I know that you do.”

Dean’s eyes match the shade of green glass behind his head. Likely sharp as. He inhales as if he’s prepared to speak, only his mouth closes and he stares back; his eyes as _green_ as her lips are _red_.

Sam’s voice shatters the silence and he forces himself to blink.

“Dean,” he says, ignorant to the moment he’d unknowingly interrupted, “I think I found it.”

* * *

**_DEAN_ **

They make a plan to return later that night, for the rod _and_ the hops, although he’s worried the storm might make that an issue.

“Well, we might get lucky,” Sam reasons. “They might have to close tomorrow anyway.”

The snow’s started by the time they leave, and the cold air bites at his face with far more intensity than it had earlier. Sam walks ahead, Googling motels, while he lingers beside Cas. From their vantage point over the river he can see tiny pinpricks of city light through the gloom. It’s _just_ bright enough that he can make out Cas’ hand hanging at his side, the side of his face. _Damsels_ , he thinks to himself with disbelief. _I’m not a damsel._ He tries to feel amused by the idea of Cas being a knight, but if he was _really_ honest with himself, it’s not the _craziest_ thing he’s ever heard. It’s easy enough to make fun sometimes, but in certain moments, he’s easily one of the most awe-inspiring creatures he’s ever seen.

Not that he really sees him as a _creature_ anymore. Hasn’t for a while. He’s just Cas.

_“I wouldn’t want you to think that you don’t have value, Dean.”_

And why would he think _that_? Because that’s what he’s always been told?

“Cas,” he says quietly, clearing his throat. “What did you mean before?”

“About what?”

“The knight and the damsels and whatever,” he says, feeling uncomfortably exposed without knowing exactly why.

He’s silent for a few seconds, his brow furrowed. “That place,” he explains, “it reminded me of certain… angelic propensities that I had not considered for some time.”

Dean’s confusion must be plain on his face because he continues, “However much angels like to consider themselves superior to human beings, they can be quite alike.”

“Yeah,” Dean grunts, “you’re tellin’ me.”

“Like angels, human beings have cultivated a relationship between love and God that often values one and corrupts the other.”

“Right,” he nods, “I get that, but what does that have to do with—”

“While I pulled you from the pit on _God’s_ order and for _God’s_ purpose, it does not negate the fact that you have _value_ beyond what my feelings for God might have been at the time.”

He abruptly stops walking and Dean almost trips over his own feet. There’s a hush in the air that comes with snow. He can _barely_ hear the sound of Sam’s shoes on the pavement, and the usual sounds of traffic have become non-existent. It makes it harder to ignore the tenor of Castiel’s voice. No different than it usually is, just… less easy to stop himself from burrowing inside of it when he speaks.

“There are… many reasons to save you, Dean,” he says softly, “‘big picture’ reasons. Because the world needs saving or a threat needs… handling.”

His nose and ears have gone numb, but when he places his hand on Dean’s shoulder it is unbelievably _warm_. On this cold hill, in this cold, dark city that has gone quiet beneath a blanket of what will be thick, fluffy snow.

“I just wanted you to know that when I risk my life for yours, I do so because it would have value to me regardless of what you might _do_ for me—or anyone else. I wasn’t sure if you knew that.”

He wants to answer, but he’s not entirely sure what to say. Just stares back into Castiel’s eyes, startling even in this half-light. His heart gives a mighty _thump_ , and he bows his head—hopes that it might help to convey what he can’t yet find the words to say.

“I know,” he hears him hum, and gives Dean’s arm a final, reassuring squeeze. “We should go.”

“Yeah,” he manages to cough, “Yeah, let’s go. Sure someone’s hit my car by now.”

Castiel smiles and they walk, slow and steady, back down to the earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find my writing on [my Tumblr](https://hencethebravery.tumblr.com)!


	2. 02.13.21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two old dudes in love take a cold drive home in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) ["Me & Magdalena," The Monkees](https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfruDTmFDUA)

_me & magdalena  
_ _always leaving early and sleeping late  
_ _secluded in the canyon  
_ _lost within a turn of fate_

“me & magdalena,” the monkees

* * *

The two of ‘em establish the somewhat rude habit of bailing during get-togethers without telling anyone. They stop answering their phones at any point before noon shortly after that. He’d call it a side effect of New Couple Syndrome (NCS), but it’s something they continue doing long after any reasonable person would call something “new” (and honestly, he’s not even sure you could say it was “new” when it _was_ new, technically).

The only way he knows how to explain it is like this: Like driving through a darkened neighborhood at night and seeing light emanating from behind the curtains. The flashing of a television—an understanding that there are _people_ in there and they are probably half-asleep on their couches. Hopefully they are not alone (and if they are, that they are not lonely). When Dean was still too small for the passenger seat of the Impala, he would stare out the window and be overcome with a fleeting sense of absolute _certainty_. It didn’t matter that he’d never meet them. Didn’t matter that he couldn’t knock on their doors and make sure. He just _knew_ —especially on those dark, late night drives out of some other town—that they were safe and warm in there. The Impala was _home_ , sure, but it wasn’t as if he had entirely forgotten what it had been like _before_. With the roof and the walls and the doors and the _smells_. That was home too.

Being with Cas is like being one of those imaginary, comfortable people tucked safe in their beds with their TVs on low. It’s like—like in the middle of a frigid, fucked-up-kinda-cold winter and you’re driving home late and you _know_ how cold it is out there and there’s an unforgivably tender part of you that feels _joy_ for those people who have something that you might never have. And sure, it’s bitter but it’s joyful too, and ya know, one day? That’s gonna be you.

* * *

It’s not as if he doesn’t enjoy being with everyone (’course not). Sittin’ quiet in the corner of this new bar in downtown Lebanon; with Cas perched on the arm of an oversized armchair—half-listening to whatever the fuck Claire is talking about. _Doesn’t even wanna **know** what a “TikTok” is at this point, to be quite fucking frank about it._

It’s just that it’s so much easier to be sure when it’s staring him right in the _freaking face_. That everyone is here and they’re _fine_ and maybe they don’t need him? At least not right now. It’s why he can grab Cas’ hand halfway through Quiz Night and head out the back door with _minimal_ guilt. He even stopped making eye contact with Sam beforehand (eventually).

> “Everyone gets it, ya know. You don’t need like... _permission_.”

It’s mid-February and Dean can feel it in all of his old, multiple-times-broken bones. There isn’t much he’d change about the Impala (she’s damn near _perfect_ as is), but as he’s gotten older he has _silently_ wished she’d heat up just a _little bit_ faster. Especially in the Midwest in February. Maybe he should invest in one of those long, stupid coats that look like a sleeping bag.

> “That’s one of the perks of getting older,” Jody laughed into her beer, “my desire to be comfortable has come to outweigh my need to _look_ _cool_.”
> 
> “Man, I’m _always_ cool,” he mumbles, the two of them watching Claire and Alex shiver out by the fire in their denim jackets and leggings and _nothing else_. “I’d look cool in a freakin’ _poncho_.”
> 
> “Sure thing, kiddo.” 

“Shit,” he hisses, sliding behind the wheel. “Fucking freezing.”

“Mm,” Cas grunts in agreement, grasping both of Dean’s dry, cold hands between his own. "We’ll be home soon.”

“New rule,” he huffs, “when shit drops below 30, we stay in.”

“Deal.”

Cas plants a final, warm, breath-filled kiss to the top of his hands before letting him pull away to start the car, and he shivers goddamn _again_.

“We really should get you a scarf,” he suggests, eyeing Dean’s exposed neck.

If it was possible to pop his collar with an even _greater_ air of defensiveness, he absolutely would have, but it’s pretty well and good _stood up_ at this point and he _knows_ when Cas knows that he knows. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

The heat _finally_ starts to rattle through the vents as they drive down a darkened suburban street a few minutes before midnight. He wonders briefly whether he’s got an internal alarm clock about _Midnight_ at this point. _Clock’s about to strike. Don’t wanna be caught with your pants down._

In the periphery of his vision he takes note of two things, one of which is not unusual but pleasant all the same. First thing being the way the shadows from the streetlights fall over Cas’ face—eerie and beautiful and familiar; the second being the glowing, almost-light of what looks to be a Christmas tree that someone’s left up way, _way_ too long. _Come on, people, it’s almost Valentine’s Day._ He slows up at the four-way stop in front of the house, and it strikes him all at once. _Like Midnight._ The dark streets; the being too small for the passenger seat. Hell, if he lets himself he’d probably be able to smell John’s cologne or hear Sammy’s snuffling.

“Dean?” 

Cas’ voice resonates in his chest; beneath his sternum somewhere like it always does, and there’s an awareness of his hand resting on top of Dean’s achey knee. That small, tender part of him? The part that he’d _tried_ to be rid of only to have it grow and change and become even painfully _more_? The part that sits in big soft armchairs and surrounds itself with the voices of people he _loves_? That part is is absolutely _ecstatic_ to find that all the other warring, disparate pieces inside himself have fought an incredibly long, hard battle in order to become one of those safe, warm people he used to make-up inside his head. Figments he had envied. People who keep their TVs on too late or their Christmas trees up way, way too long. _February. Jesus._

“Yeah,” he chokes, rolling slowly through the stop sign towards the highway.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says again, _lighter_ , “Yeah, totally. Just cold.”

“We’ll be warm soon,” Cas replies with a gentle squeeze. “I’m exhausted.”

He’s not _totally_ sure if Cas is ignorant of whatever just happened or if he’s giving him a pass, but he’s grateful either way. Sometimes you’re just too tired to talk about the heavy stuff (and besides, there’s always coffee in the morning). He is _fully_ aware that his extraordinary lack of being willing to share has been something of a significant problem over the years. But that’s kind of the beauty of Cas, isn’t it? The Knowing Silence that has somehow gotten even _more_ knowing over the years. _Fucking blessing **and** a curse._

So, yeah, he’s sure they’ll return to this moment—not a doubt in his mind. He’s sure that he’ll reveal something that Castiel has always suspected. Something that has pained him for a _stupid_ number of years—like a splinter that you can’t find. But sometimes there’s nothin’ for it but to give it up and get into bed. Especially once the all-consuming power of Midnight has come and gone and it’s too cold to turn your key in the ignition. No, sometimes you gotta crawl into bed (with the expensive memory foam topper) and sleep until the sun comes up. _Maybe even a few more hours after that._

And hopefully you’re not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find my writing on [my Tumblr](https://hencethebravery.tumblr.com)!


End file.
